September 2012

Myitkyina – Fighting in northern Myanmar has forced some 10,000 people to flee their homes in the last month. UNHCR is concerned that more families may be trapped in conflict zones plagued by landmines and food shortages. (more…)

Burma continues to use arbitrary arrest as a tool to hold members of the democracy and human rights movement behind bars often without formal charges, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma said in a statement on Thursday. (more…)

The Karen National Union (KNU) says it will take legal action against the head of its armed wing for making an unauthorized trip to the Karen State capital of Pa-an to open a new liaison office as part of a ceasefire agreement with the Burmese government. (more…)

Two people were killed while two others were seriously injured when police opened fire into a crowd in Shar Khae Gyi Village, Kyonepyaw Township, Pathain (Bassein) District, Irrawaddy Division, on Thursday evening. (more…)

The U.S. decision to lift a ban on exports from Myanmar could give the country its best shot at becoming the world’s next low-cost manufacturing hub as well as firm up the fragile political reforms now taking place. But business leaders say it will be a long time before T-shirts and hoodies made in the Southeast Asian country are ubiquitous in shopping malls and years before meaningful benefits reach its archaic industrial infrastructure and low-income households. (more…)

The World Health Organization said Thursday that governments in the Mekong region must act “urgently” to stop the spread of drug-resistant malaria which has emerged in parts of Vietnam and Myanmar. (more…)

Burma’s reforms are “irreversible” and the country’s ethnic conflicts, including the Muslim Rohingya issue, will be resolved according to “international norms,” President Thein Sein told the 67th UN General Assembly in an address on Thursday. (more…)

Washington – While Burmese President Thein Sein was addressing the UN General Assembly in New York, separate rallies were held nearby—two by members of the Kachin community and one by a Burma NGO in support of the Rohingyas—to protest the conflict in Burma and alleged human rights abuses by the Burmese army and the security forces. (more…)

A bag of rice and $60 in local currency: that is what it cost one unscrupulous military officer to entice Mg Tun Tun, a fifteen year-old boy from the rural Bago region of Burma, to join the army. According to an interview with the child’s mother in a local newspaper, Mg Tun Tun was cutting wood near his home when he was run down by a motorcycle and spirited away to a nearby military base. He was released in September along with 41 other fresh-faced boys of about the same age, at a ceremony presided over by officials from the Tatmadaw, as the Burmese military is known. Mg Tun Tun was bribed, but some of the other children said they had joined willingly and would even re-enlist after turning 18. (more…)

Buddhist monks in Burma and in exile vowed on Wednesday to continue pushing the Burmese authorities to apologize for a crackdown on massive protests five years ago and to release all monks still behind bars. (more…)